


Clocks

by Sumthinelse



Series: Shelter [6]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Depression, M/M, Mental Health Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-26
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:55:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23253562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumthinelse/pseuds/Sumthinelse
Summary: Stiles has a mental health crisis and leaves Beacon Hills in order to try and find inner peace. He has several visitors along the way.*Rating is for lanuage
Relationships: Chris Argent/Stiles Stilinski, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Series: Shelter [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654153
Comments: 16
Kudos: 72





	1. A quiet place

**Author's Note:**

> I felt like everyone in this series has been through a lot, and their feelings are all valid, but Stiles has been in the center of everything, and holding it together for far too long.

“Hi Dad.”

“Why did you feel the need to leave town?”

“Because people won’t take a hint and leave me alone so I can meditate at home.” He waited as his father took in the words. He knew he sounded irritable, but he was. He’d tried to take time to think, but too many people were in his life to ignore.

“Did you actually say, ‘Leave me alone’?”

“I _did_ send an email asking for no calls for a week.”

“Point taken. Where are you going?”

“I’ll call you on the weekend. I love you, but I really want to be left alone for a week, can you do that?”

“Yes.” Stiles hung up.

~

“Hi Lydia.”

“If I feel the sudden urge to scream, I’m calling.”

“Ok.”

“Have a good week.”

~

“Hi Scott.”

“Why didn’t you talk to me?”

“It’s really loud in my head, Scotty. I want a change of scenery and some quiet time to think. I’ll call you this weekend.”

“Love you, Bro.”

“You too.”

“Isaac’s worried, He wants to call you.”

“Okay.”

“Later.”

~

“Hi Isaac. I left you something in the last place you’ll look.”

“What does that mean?”

“Follow your nose.”

“Can Derek come stay for the week?”

“He can move into one of the bedrooms if he wants. I mean it.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Make sure our dad doesn’t try to put an APB out on me. In fact, cause enough trouble to keep him occupied.”

“Ten-four.”

~

“Hello?”

“Stiles?”

“Derek?”

“Isaac gave me your number. I just wanted to check in with you.”

“Yes, I meant it. You can move in if you want.”

“I wouldn’t impose, but I have no credit history.”

“See you in a week.”

“Are you committing suicide?”

“I appreciate you being direct. No, I plan to live a long healthy, sexually fulfilling life. Since I’m unemployed and flush with your uncle’s money, it’s the perfect time to take a little break and figure out what I want to do next.”

“You can talk to me if you need to, Stiles. When you want to talk to someone. Have a safe trip.”

“Have fun moving all your heavy shit without me.”

“I have almost no shit. And none of it’s heavy.”

“Oh, good. I’m putting my phone on do not disturb for a while, so if anyone complains, tell them I said, ‘Fuck off I’ll see you Monday’.”

“Fuck off, got it.”

Stiles was staring at the ceiling fan on the third day of his trip. Technically it was the fourth since it was after two in the morning. He hadn’t left his room yet, and hadn’t even looked out the window since he checked in. His mind wasn’t empty, but it was calm. Numb would be a better word, but it was an improvement, so he’d go with calm. He had a lot to unpack in his mind, and no interruptions. He’d slept so long his muscles had started to ache from the too-firm mattress, but it was two in the morning, and he had nothing to do but think. _This is what you wanted, right?_

Stiles had needed a mental vacation a few times in his life. When he’d been a year into therapy after his mom died, during his senior year when he’d had doubts about his ability to ‘adult’, and when his dad had been shot. He remembered the quiet. In the attic at his house when he was nine, in the back of the library in the middle of the night, and at Scott’s house when Melissa had been at the hospital and Scott had left for work. Each time it happened the clarity had come only when he’d stopped feeling the guilt of procrastination. He’d stopped caring about what he was missing out on, or what people needed from him.

At nine, he’d realized that life would go on, and that he could catch up on work. He was a minor and they couldn’t stop him from getting an education. In college, he’d realized that nobody had any real understanding of how to be an adult until they had to act like one. Staying home alone, having sex, getting your first job, and scheduled transitions like graduations and standardized testing were all different levels of playing house: potentially hazardous enough to pay attention to what you’re doing, but never the life-altering rite-of-passage you thought it would be. His father’s shooting had been fairly minor, but it had sent him into a funk. His father’s mortality, the necessary rehab, and the knowledge that he’d be alone if anything happened to John.

Stiles remembered the day in Scott’s house acutely. His father was out of surgery and he’d spoken to him in recovery before going back to the McCall house. He’d lain on Scott’s bed and stared at the ceiling until things made sense. For nearly five hours he hadn’t moved. His father was going to be okay, but things would change for them. Stiles would need to put off finding his own place and pay the bills at his dad’s house for a while. Insurance would help, but a sheriff’s salary got them by, it didn’t leave a big nest egg for emergencies. Unlike in childhood when his dad was responsible for making sure that in spite of everything happening, he’d make it okay for Stiles, it was Stiles who’d need to step up and make it okay for his dad.

Once the answer had presented itself, Stiles had felt foolish for worrying. He’d just needed to adjust his thinking and his idea of how important his independence was. After all, it’s not like his dad could cramp his style too much with a cast on his leg. The answer had been easy, and Stiles had understood that he wasn’t playing house anymore. He’d pulled himself up off Scott’s bed and grown up. Things had been much simpler with fourth grade, job hunting, and physical therapy. Stiles was in a different universe now, or more accurately, he’d just learned about the universe and had previously been living in oblivion.

Things had been okay. Stiles had taken things in stride, compartmentalized, and functioned as needed during the crises and afterwards. Then he wasn’t functioning on all four cylinders, and then he wasn’t functioning. Full stop. He’d run away before anyone could ask him what was wrong. He could lie when he needed to, no doubt, but only when he had a convincing story to put in place of the truth. He had nothing like that now, and a lot more ears that could hear his heartbeat. Part of him felt like he’d really left Beacon Hills in order to think up a better lie.

Stiles was okay. Relatively speaking. He’d survived multiple violent encounters without much in the way of injury when others had lost their entire families, extended and biological, or they’d been subjected to chemical imprisonment in their own heads and forced to live as a more primitive creature. His friends had both been bitten by a Werewolf and had changed into something amazing. Stiles had just killed someone. He wasn’t the only one, but the other two had experience. And he’d been fucking both of them until it became too awkward, or painful to continue. Stiles had drawn a line with them that he’d immediately stepped over with the unexpected arrival of his heat, and then Allison had happened, followed by the return of Peter’s memories.

Self-pity was heavy in the Omega’s thoughts. He should’ve known better. He should’ve avoided sex with either the father of his friend-who was also the friend of his father-and the re-civilized Werewolf he’d been caring for over the previous years.

“What did you think was going to happen?” Stiles whispered out loud. “They were together before you were born. You’re an Omega, and Chris was married to Victoria before he chased you to Vegas. He told you he couldn’t commit, you dumb shit! He told you, but you kept bending over.” He let a few self-pitying tears slip out of his eyes when his dick plumped up at the memory of being folded over in the back of Chris Argent’s car and fucked wildly by the man. He burned for Chris’s touch, and if he was honest, his approval.

Thinking of Peter brought up so much guilt, that Stiles rolled onto his side. His hip ached with the pressure on the hard mattress. “Stop,” Stiles said out loud and wiped away the tears. “Stop!” he said again and banged his fists against the mattress. “You have to pull your shit together.” He looked at the ceiling and let the tears roll down his temples. This is why he had left town. He didn’t want people telling him he’d be okay, and he didn’t want his father feeling guilty. He didn’t want to get angry at his father, or Chris, or Peter, but he was angry with them all. He needed to work through it before he got back to town or he’d be eaten up with resentment as well.

Stiles had to let go of Chris and Peter. They were adults, and they’d pursued him for their own reasons. Neither one hid their ongoing lust for him, but neither had made a real offer for a longer-term commitment. Now that was out of the question with both of them. Chris needed Allison more than he needed Stiles, and some part of Peter hated him. He cried again, because he’d never felt as connected to anyone as he had to them, and the sex had been unbelievable. He cried because of his own shallowness over being hung up on some good dick.

Stiles dozed off around three and woke up at nine when housekeeping knocked on his door. He peeled himself off the bed and promised them he’d be going downstairs shortly. He showered and dressed and went to the restaurant for breakfast, ordering a bagel and coffee. He stared at the local paper instead of the wall so that people wouldn’t think he was stoned or mentally unstable. He tried to push his misery at his own situation aside and think about what he wanted to do next.

The chair across from Stiles went from empty to occupied silently and stealthily. He sighed before looking up.

“I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I know.”

“Breakfast? My treat.”

“Sure.”

The server came over and asked Allison what she wanted.

“Croissant, fruit plate, and coffee, please.” When the server left, she leaned back in her chair with an unreadable expression.

“How did you find me?”

“On my way out of town, I stopped by your apartment and put a tracker on your jeep.” She held up a hand before he could say anything. “I was angry, and I didn’t believe my dad was going to stop seeing you, and I thought I should be allowed to invade someone else’s privacy via the internet. I was wrong, and I didn’t do it because it was wrong.”

“But…”

“Lydia called me. She asked me if I’d run you out of town. She said you left in order to get space from everyone and accused me of being a bitch to you and driving you away from your home.”

“So, you decided to invade my privacy via the internet in order to ease your conscience, or to be smug.”

“Did you leave because of what I said?”

“Not anything you said to me, no.”

“It hurts that you were sleeping with my dad and didn’t tell me.”

“It hurt that your dad pursued me and ghosted me at first. I was too embarrassed to say anything to anyone. He came to talk to me about it and apologized. He explained about how he had a responsibility to not hurt you, and to keep his life private until he could get out of the business because a lot of employees would lose their jobs, and your future livelihood would be tainted by scandal.”

“Scandal?”

“I’m glad it didn’t occur to you that your dad and I could’ve been involved when I was a teenager.”

“Oh. No. Wait, were you?”

“No, but I had a serious cougar-thing for your mom for a while.”

“Get in line. I think I got a few requests for my phone number so guys could oogle my mom. My female friends were usually trying to get Dad’s attention, even Lydia tried a few times.”

“There was nothing to tell at first. We’d hooked up, and it was awkward afterwards, and he explained about his responsibilities, and we were just cool. That’s not something I’d have told anyone about because I was embarrassed. Then he saved my life, and we started to get to know each other as people. There was a lot happening, and we spent time together because we were trying to solve a mystery. We still never went out on a date, but we felt a little closer. Then it became clear that we weren’t compatible. I broke things off even though we were never really together, but then…” Stiles looked at his plate. “I went into heat and triggered his rut.”

“Oh, don’t give me details.”

“He was pissed,” Stiles said with a snicker. “He said he could be a grandfather and was getting his rut triggered by me.”

“Ew!” Allison held her hands up in front of her eyes.

“It didn’t patch things up, but we were okay afterwards. Friends. That’s really it.”

“Why him?”

“I don’t know. It was probably the guns, or the danger, or the taboo. I’m hardly without my own issues, and maybe I’ve always been self-destructive and pursued men I could never be with.”

“He said he pursued you.”

“Yeah, definitely. But I was thinking about the guy after him.”

“Your sugar daddy?”

“You heard about that?”

“I heard the apartment was pretty nice.”

“It is.”

“I’m kinda regretting your drunken offer of a three-way with me and Scott when you were seventeen.”

“I’d have performed poorly in that state, and you would have been wrong to judge my prowess based on that night. Otherwise, had I been given an enthusiastic green light from both of you, I’d have shown you a very good time prior to engaging in sex for approximately ninety seconds.” He shrugged, “I had no stamina when anyone else was in the room.” Allison laughed, and things were okay.

“Why did you come here?”

“I’m hurting.” He sipped his coffee. “The last few months have been hard. A lot of stuff has gone on, people have tried to kill me, people around me have died, and I need to figure out what to do next.” He looked at her fruit plate. “How about you?”

“My aunt was stalking my friend, my grandfather was a bigot who never would have accepted my father, both of them died, and I can’t figure out how to feel about it on the eve of taking the company public which will make me a millionaire overnight.”

“There’s no handbook,” Stiles said.

“I don’t know how to feel about my dad, either.”

“Is it because I’m a man?”

“Yes,” Allison nodded. “He didn’t tell me he liked men. He could’ve trusted me with it, but he didn’t. I can’t help but feel like it would’ve been easier if he’d started dating a guy his own age, but I can’t help being pissed any more than someone whose parents get divorced only for their dad to start driving a sports car and chasing waitresses in order to feel young.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re exactly the kind of person I’d want to see my dad falling for, Stiles. You’re smart, dedicated, capable, and so very worthy of a loving partner.” She looked earnest when she said it. “But you’re a year younger than me, and I can’t help but feel like my dad is deluding himself by thinking he can keep up with the energy of someone your age, and that he wasn’t being fair to you because he’s just trying to prove something.”

“I appreciate how it looks, and I appreciate that some part of that was meant to not insult me,” Stiles took out two twenties and put them on the table, “but if it eases your mind, I was the one flagging most of the time. Your dad is an animal.” He watched her mouth drop open. “I’ve no idea if you came here to help me or not, but I’m too wrapped up in my own mental fragility to try and put you back together. Go see Lydia.” He kissed her forehead. “I’m in no condition to give you absolution, and no position to judge.”

Stiles walked away from the restaurant and to the elevator. He took his phone out of his pocket and turned it on. He was glad Allison found him, for however surreal their breakfast was, and now he was ready to read his emails and text messages.


	2. The Chris conundrum

Stiles found several messages from his father and Scott, but Lydia had left him alone. Isaac had said one asking exactly what he’d meant by ‘Follow your nose.’ He answered them and felt a twinge of hurt when there was nothing from Chris or Peter. He debated calling Chris and ended up sending him a text if for no other reason than he felt he owed the man a head’s up about Allison.

_To@rgent- Allison unexpectedly joined me for breakfast this morning. Apparently you have GPS trackers at Argent Arms that can be attached to jeeps._

_From@rgent- I’ll handle it._

_To@rgent- It was a head’s up, not a warning. I don’t need you to handle it on my end._

_From@rgent- I’m sorry, Stiles._

_To@rgent- We talked, how she responds to me is up to her, neither of us can control it. Her behavior is not something you need to apologize for._

_From@rgent-I’m sorry for a lot of things._

Stiles felt okay getting an apology from the man. Stiles wasn’t a passenger for their relationship, but Chris had definitely made choices that were far from altruistic concerning someone he professed to care for. Stiles’s feelings for the man were complicated, but after the text message, he felt like it was fresh enough to stir up. Christmas had been a mess of tangled, complicated emotions. Seeing Chris right after Peter came back had been terrible for Stiles, and in all of the excitement, he hadn’t expressed how awful it had been. Hurting, disgusted, and embarrassed at waking up painfully knotted by Peter and being jerked off by him had put him in a kind of crisis/triage mode.

It had been a blur at the time, but seeing Chris and Peter greeting each other after painfully cleaning Peter’s cum out of himself had brought up the worst feelings Stiles had ever experienced. He had pushed it down instead of dealing with it but staring at the clock on the nightstand brought it back fresh and bright and sharp.

~

The shower room smelled like bleach. They had to hose it with a diluted bleach solution between each Alpha, but it always smelled that way. Stiles had a pair of scrubs rolled up in the corner and a thin, damp towel. He was naked and angling the spray of the water between his legs. Tears welled up as he used his fingers to hold his cheeks apart and did his best to push out the sticky fluid. Eventually he had to slide two fingers inside his tender, swollen ass and painfully scissor them open so that the load of dirty cum could wash down the drain. He hadn’t prepped, obviously, so there were flecks of shit going down the drain, too. He didn't look at the drain. he just stared at the digital clock that hung on the wall. He counted the blinks until two minutes had passed and he didn't feel anything leaking out anymore.

“I could use a shower too,” Peter sang from outside the door. “I stink like twink and garbage, right now.”

“Almost done.” Stiles kept himself from crying as disgust and shame filled him. He dried off and pulled on the dry garments before shouldering past the Alpha. He heard the Were turning on and adjusting the water temperature and looked around him at the barn. Everything looked far too normal for an altered reality. He fought for control and tried to push everything away. He had things to do, he couldn’t stop to cry and break down. He was confused and the dissociative feeling of waking up somewhere you didn’t go to sleep was distracting him.

Stiles stashed his clothes in the office and went to the door. He took a few slow breaths, not wanting to face the hunter, but also wanting the man to hold him. Chris looked worried and upset.

“What happened?” Stiles confessed that he had no idea. He told him what he remembered while avoiding the man’s eyes. They both heard the shower turn off and Stiles knew he didn’t have a lot of time before Peter came out. He felt Chris’s hands on his arms and wanted to melt into his touch. The man’s blue eyes were concerned when he looked at Stiles’s face. It was too much, and Stiles started to crack, but before he could hug Chris, the door to the shower room opened and they both turned to see Peter strutting out. He looked back at Chris, not sure what to expect, but the hunter had seemed to forget he was even there.

“Honey, I’m home.”

Stiles felt numb as Chris pushed past him, brushing him aside, and approached Peter slowly, reverently. He couldn’t breathe as he watched the men reunite. Chris had never shown this kind of emotion, not at Victoria’s memorial service, not during his apology to Stiles at his apartment, and not during any of their encounters. This was Chris _naked._ His armor was down as he touched Peter’s face and arms and held him. They spoke softly to each other even though the only other person who could’ve understood them was Stiles. But this was a private reunion and the Omega wasn’t invited.

Stiles felt violated, emotionally and physically. Used. Discarded. No longer needed. A third wheel. In seventh grade he’d helped Shannon Fortin plan her birthday party because she’d wanted a police dog to do a demonstration, and then he hadn’t been invited to the party. That feeling hadn’t come close to this. His ass was throbbing from the un-prepped knotting that might or might not have been consensual, and as soon as Peter walked out of the bathroom, Stiles had ceased to exist.

~

Lunch was an uninspired baked chicken with soggy carrots and dry potatoes, but he choked it down with a decent cup of coffee. He was tempted to go get tacos, but it would involve leaving the hotel, so he lay back down on his bed to contemplate his life choices. The clock was there again and it reminded him of the clock on Peter Hale's microwave when he'd seen the man's apartment for the first time.

Stiles had felt like he was in seventh grade all over again when he’d suggested Peter, Stiles and Chris all share information while standing in Peter’s apartment, and then Peter and Chris had exchanged a look. Stiles had assumed he’d been invited to the party this time and he’d been wrong again. He’d spent years looking after Peter which had been a dangerous and very messy job at times, and Chris had left him in the dark about who he was. Stiles had been the key to bringing Peter back, Stiles had been the one who’d been forced to ‘take one for the team’ by Duke, and he’d held his shit together for days while looking after a newly restored Peter, and now that they didn’t need him anymore, it was too dangerous to tell him anything.

As he lay in the hotel bed, teeming with anger and resentment, he was pleased that he’d at least had the satisfaction of throwing it in their faces that he’d been used and then discarded by them. They hadn’t even denied it. He heard the door to the room beside his open and close. He rolled his eyes at the thin walls and sighed. His neighbor would be lucky because Stiles wasn’t planning any wild parties. He hoped whoever it was didn’t have a brood of noisy children. His stomach growled and he reached for the room service menu. It was fairly standard fare, and he order a club sandwich, a beer, and some cookies for dessert.

Stiles had talked to Lydia about the way Peter had come back, and she’d been sympathetic and pissed on his behalf, but there was no precedent for this kind of situation, and she was trying to figure things out too. Then the revelations about Duke had thrown them together again, and despite Stiles’s attempts to keep the men at arm’s length, Chris had drawn him back in. He’d spent his heat with the men, although he’d never really know if Chris had called Peter because he’d believed the Omega might prefer him, or if he’d called Peter to offer the Alpha an opportunity to have Stiles.

All three of them really were fucked up. He and Chris were…okay. The anger bled out of him when he thought about where they were as of the previous week when Peter’s memories came back. San Francisco had been tense, but it effectively distanced Stiles from both Alphas. What had happened in the tunnel was a far cry from the organized and methodical dismantling of Theo and Corey’s lives, figuratively and literally. He cared more about them for their commitment to protecting everyone, but it made them a little less relatable.

After Allison’s blow-up with Chris, Stiles had talked to him, and kissed him, but it hadn’t been about sex. He’d offered to comfort someone he saw as a good man who was having doubts about his decisions. Ultimately, he decided that Chris tried very hard to be a good man, but he wasn’t perfect, and he hated himself for it most of the time.

Stiles got up to take a shower when he caught a whiff of his own armpit. It had been worse, but the room wasn’t very large. Freshly cleaned, he’d set his tray outside his room and picked up the remote. He wondered if anything would be on television that would distract him from his thoughts. He was about to select HGTV when he heard a knock on his door. He started to stand up but paused. The knock hadn’t been from the door leading to the hallway, but the one that adjoined the next room. The doors between each room were always kept locked, but his neighbor had unlocked his own, and knocked on Stiles’s. He approached the door an unlocked it.

“Allison, if it’s you, I swear I’ll give you details this time.” He swung the door open and blanched. “That was a bluff.”

“I know, I can hear your heartbeat.” Chris stood there in jeans and a t-shirt. “I thought you might want to talk.”


	3. Like moving pictures in my head.

“Since yesterday I’ve been having a little retrospective about the last few months. I just got to the part where we’re okay. A few hours ago, you wouldn’t have been so lucky.” He leaned on the doorway. “Did Allison tell you where I am?”

“She wouldn’t pick up the phone. I came here to reclaim a piece of equipment from a civilian vehicle. I checked and there are no others. If you want to check out of here and find another place where you can actually be alone, you should be okay. At least where our GPS trackers are concerned.”

“Pretty sure my dad can find me. Or any number of other people I associate with regularly.”

“You look tired.”

“So do you.” He noticed a few stray hairs out of place. “Did you take a nap before you knocked?”

“Yeah,” Chris looked a little sheepish. “I didn’t sleep much last night.”

“You okay? And as someone who’s not okay right now, I don’t want you to give me some kind of line about just being wired, or just too many thoughts.”

“A couple of things. I had a lot of emails and calls to make regarding the company going public. It still may take a few months, but I’m letting other people handle most of it.”

“Is that it?”

“No. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Peter, you, the pack, Isaac, Derek, Lydia, Boyd…” He trailed off. “I shouldn’t have told Allison when I did. The timing was shitty, and we’d already stopped seeing each other.”

“We were never ‘seeing each other’, Chris.” Stiles saw the flinch.

“I was protecting you too,” he said.

“If you punch me in the face because you have a nightmare, I understand why it happened. You need to understand that it doesn’t make it hurt any less, it doesn’t leave less of a bruise, and you can’t be pissed off when I don’t want to sleep beside you again.” He took a breath. “You followed me to Vegas so you could have relative privacy to seduce me. Then you ghosted me. Then you cornered me at the range when I was having breakthrough heat to protect yourself, and to make sure nobody else fucked me. Then you fucking ghosted me again until Allison invited me over. That’s when you apologized. You also made sure to drive me home so you could fuck me again.”

“Yes.”

“I own my choices, but don’t pretend you weren’t seeking me out with no intention of giving me anything else.” He saw Chris looking like he wanted to make an excuse. “You said you had nothing to offer, but you kept making opportunities.”

“Okay.” Chris nodded, stiffly.

“The night Peter recovered. When did you know what happened? How long did it take you to figure out the chain of events with your nose?”

“I could hear you both when I got out of the truck. I could tell you were…occupying the same spot, and I could smell it. I figured out you were knotted pretty quickly, but I was afraid for you. I thought Peter had attacked you.”

“Why?”

“Other than the obvious part about him biting others, because I could smell blood.”

“I woke up in pain and confused and scared. I had no idea what happened and was trying to cope. I was embarrassed and ashamed to be stuck on a feral Were’s knot. Once I got loose, I went to the shower to try and get clean. It hurt to wash, it was disgusting, and I had Peter bitching outside about how he needed to shower because he smelled like ‘twink’. I was about to lose my shit, not knowing what had happened, and dealing with the fucking surreal experience of Peter _talking_ , so I got dressed, went to the door because you, the guy I’d learned to trust despite his shitty treatment of me, was there to help. I felt like I was going to fall to pieces. And you looked so concerned. I was relieved. I thought you could help me. I needed you to help me. And then Peter walked out of the shower and you forgot I was even there.”

“Stiles-”

“Shut up, I’m not finished.” Stiles sniffled and wiped his eyes. “See it from _my_ perspective. I had essentially been roofied and raped, I was hurt, bleeding, and you walked right past me to hug Peter, and whisper softly to him; things you didn’t want me to hear. You were smiling, and overjoyed, and then you asked me what happened, as if I hadn't just told you. Then I went to go look at the stall, and you actually asked me ‘What’s on your mind?’.” He was crying and trying not to blubber now. “What did you think was on my mind, Chris? And then I had to stay with Peter in the house for days. You couldn’t spare five minutes to get him into my apartment so that I wouldn’t have to be in close contact with him, alone? No, you made me stay there until you figured out what was safest for _him_!”

“I’m sorry.”

“You knew. And you didn’t care.”

“That’s not true.”

“Did you stop smelling blood?”

“I asked if he hurt you when we got outside.”

“Did you ask _him_ if he hurt me? While you were smiling and hugging, and touching his face, did you bring up the bleeding Omega? No. Because you were so happy to have him back, my well being was suddenly far less important.” He took a few deep breaths. “The fact that it was a crisis didn’t mean I didn’t feel completely used and unimportant during that time. It still sucks to have something awful happen and be told that it’s not the most important thing ‘right now’.” He wrapped his arms around himself. “Then Duke had to announce to everyone what happened, and it was like lava getting poured all over me. I had to push through that and cooperate with him because he had _information_. He had a dead pack and excuses. He raped Peter and me, but because his actions resulted in Peter’s coherence, Peter was fine with it. Duke got upgraded accommodations, an Omega for his bed, and a new wardrobe complete with a Beta trying to join his pack.”

“I can’t imagine how hurtful that was.”

“It was a paradox. Nobody was happy about the way it had happened, but everyone was happy with the result. What was I supposed to do with that?”

“I should’ve made him leave.”

“Yes!” Stiles broke down. “No matter what happened to him, no matter what happened to his pack, he didn’t have to hurt me to get what he wanted. Nobody made him leave until Isaac wanted him to leave.”

“I know it’s late, but Peter planned to kill him. He thought we couldn’t trust him for the reasons you just said. I said not to because we’d have had to kill the twins. They’re too twisted up with him and I thought it was unfair.”

“It feels like everyone who hurts me gets a free pass because their lives suck.”

“You mean Peter too, right?”

“And you. You stayed in a dangerous job to keep others safe. You denied yourself things you wanted because of the effect it would have on other people, not just yourself. You were surrounded by people who’d lynch a Werewolf who wanted a same-sex relationship, of course you’re cautious and paranoid. You lost someone close to you, possibly forever and then he was standing right in front of you, of course you got distracted and you were happy. I get it.” He reached for a tissue from the box on the desk beside the door. “Peter’s the same. He lost most of his family, got trapped in his own mind and killed his niece. He was treated like an animal for six years and others of his kind are killed, captured and treated worse every day. Of course, he’s going to resent me. Of course, I’m going to try and help him deal with Pavlov’s dick.” He blew his nose and tossed the tissue in the trash can, walking back into his room to wash his hands because, gross.

“Is that why you and Peter were intimate after…?”

“I don’t know. I think I wanted to normalize it. Maybe he did too. Maybe he felt bad about hurting me and wanted to tell himself there was a chance I would’ve said yes if we’d been coherent. Maybe that’s why I did it, too. I was scared that I’d done it on purpose and blocked it out, and maybe if he wanted me, I wasn’t guilty either.” He sat down on the end of the bed and Chris took a chair across from him. “Once I could leave the shelter, I felt so much better. Peter and I worked through some shit and spent the night together. I wanted to be okay. I felt like I had no right to complain and pushed past it. Then we went to his apartment and the two of you shut me out.” Chris handed him another tissue. “You two looked at each other when I suggested sharing information, and it was like being back at the barn with you two whispering right in front of me. It was like Shannon Fortin's party that I helped her plan and didn't get invited to.

“Thanks for keeping him safe with no idea what he is for years, and for getting knotted so he could come back, and for playing host for the holiday, and blowing him because he can’t get it up for anyone else, but fuck you for asking to hear the truth.” He looked up at Chris. “I don’t care who you were protecting before, but you should've opened up after Peter came back. You fucking hypocrite, you wouldn't be honest with me until I was in heat. You said you'd have done anything to get me back, but the second my back is turned, you called Peter and offered me up to him too. Did I fucking give you permission to tell anyone I was in heat? Did you think I don't deserve privacy and a choice too? Obviously not, because after the speech you gave me about how nobody could know about us because you had responsibilities and how your employees, and Allison would suffer if I was indiscreet, you turned around and told her yourself." He was breathing heavily and Chris looked ashamed. "You let her have space after she blew up at both of us. She said it was my fault if she told people because I let you into my bed. You let her ignore you because _she_ was hurt. You let her have a fucking tantrum because _she_ was hurt. And she came after me while I was alone and vulnerable.” He looked at the ceiling fan again. “I always expected consequences, but it wasn’t too much to ask to have this fucking week away from all of you before I dealt with it.”

“I’ll talk to her-”

“I hope you’re not implying that you have any expectation of controlling my response to this. You think you’re allowed to manage her anger, or mine?” He shook his head. “You don’t get to dictate how people respond to you. I don’t either, because I got involved with both of you despite how unhealthy it was.” His face crumpled up and he cried quietly for a minute or two. Then he used a handful of tissues to wipe his eyes and blow his nose again. He tossed the empty box on the floor.

“Stiles’”

“Fuck you!” The Omega stood up. “ _You_ left him there and you didn’t say anything to me. _You_ weren’t the one getting his hand broken by Peter at the shelter and taking months to heal. _You_ weren’t the one getting stitches. _You_ weren’t the one getting his ribs cracked, and _you_ weren’t the one getting a concussion. That was me. I devoted my life to my work, I _risked_ my life for it and nearly lost because I wanted to protect him. I knew some of the risks, and I tried to deal with the consequences of my own choices. I tried so fucking hard, Chris. I tried, and now I’m the one who’s alone. I wasn’t okay, but I was going to work through it because I had Peter, and I had you, and I had my dad and Scott and Lydia.” He sniffled. “They’re all part of Peter’s pack now, and despite everything I’ve done, I’m the one left out in the cold. I’m the one Peter wants to hurt.” He was crying again and knew he was sounding hysterical. “It wasn’t my fault!” He sat back down and buried his face in his arms. “It wasn’t my fault.”

“I know.” Chris sounded wrecked as he knelt in front of Stiles and wrapped his arms around the human. “You made everyone else’s life so much better. Even just by being in it, Stiles. You were the best thing that happened to Peter and the shelter. You’re the best thing to come into my life in a very long time. You were the most vulnerable person out of all of us, including Allison and Isaac, but you’re the one who made the decision to walk into a room with Kate and Gerard. You knew Allison and Isaac wouldn’t get us all out alive.” He squeezed Stiles when the younger man cried harder. “You’re the bravest, cleverest, and most caring man I’ve ever met.” He squeezed tighter and the human felt like he was suffocating.

~

Stiles opened his eyes and took in a breath. His face was in his pillow which was soaked in tears, spit and snot. The hotel room was dark, and he looked around, reaching for Chris, but he was alone. Stiles didn’t remember the man leaving and sat up, trying to shake off sleep and the unnerving displaced emotions of his dream. He reached for his phone and tried to turn it on. It was dead. It had been dead since the first night he’d arrived. He wiped his nose and left a snail trail of snot on his forearm as he fumbled for his charger.

Stiles found it in the bottom of his bag, plugged it into the wall and his phone. He went to the bathroom and emptied his bladder without turning on any lights and found his way back thanks to the illumination of his screen lighting up with the charger indicator. He turned it on and slid to the floor with his back against the wall and sat in the dark beside his phone. He was tired, and he fought to keep the feeling of contentment that had started to blossom in his chest. Chris had held him, told him he was good and kind, told him he did the right thing.

“Please,” he whispered as tears leaked down his cheeks. He didn’t want to look at the screen, but eventually it lit up and went through its wake-up cycle. He had a small reprieve while it ran updates during which he cried a little and begged. Stiles felt his arm hairs pull painfully against the snot that had dried as he reached for his phone. The clock blinked at him and he stared back. He’d been at the hotel for five days. It was Sunday. He sniffled and opened the screen. He squinted and adjusted the back lighting and then looked again. His texts and emails had unread messages and he opened them. He flipped to Chris’s and looked at the last text message.

_From@rgent- Derek attacked Lydia. Peter is with him, she’s okay. Come to the house, now._

Stiles folded his arms, put his head down, and cried. He cried harder when he turned on the lamp and saw the nearly-full box of tissues on the desk as he hunted for his wallet. It was in the back pocket of the jeans he’d worn when he arrived that still lay crumpled on the floor. He counted the money in his wallet while going over his breakfast conversation. It had felt so real, with none of the reality-altering details that usually accompanied a dream. He still had all his cash, but he also remembered his other meals that day: the coffee, the bad potatoes and the chicken. He wasn’t sure what had happened and what he’d imagined.

Stiles couldn’t breathe. He wheezed and huffed, dropping his wallet and backing away. He bumped into the bed and stumbled, crashing into the desk, unable to catch himself as he hit the floor, with inky blackness entering the edges of his vision. Above him, the ceiling fan spun lazily around. He couldn’t move his eyes, or blink until his eyes got so dry from the fan’s breeze that they blurred and stung. He blinked and then he blinked again and left his eyes closed. He stood up and pushed back the curtains before opening his eyes. It was dark, so the clock blinking at him was telling him it was three in the morning on the fifth day away from Beacon Hills. He wasn’t certain what had happened to the fourth day. He pulled up his credit card app, to see if Saturday’s meals were listed. There was nothing in his pending charges. He fought down panic and picked up the phone on the desk.

“Front desk.”

“I didn’t see anything on my credit card statement as far as my meals. Do they get charged at the end of my stay?”

“I don’t see any charges so far, Mr. Stilinski. Perhaps you paid for your meals in cash?” The voice was polite and helpful.

“Does it say what time my last room service order went in?”

“Hold on one moment while I pull that up…according to what I have here, no services have been generated for your room.”

“I’ve been here since Wednesday, right?”

“That’s correct.” The voice sounded uncertain. “Mr. Stilinski, if you walked downstairs and ordered at the bar or restaurant, and you paid in cash, the bill wouldn’t be attached to your room.”

“Sure, that must’ve been it. I just had a crazy dream about room service. Sorry to bother you.”

“It’s no trouble, Sir. Is there anything else I can help you with this morning?”

“Yeah, where are the controls for the ceiling fan?”

“Do you mean the vent near the ceiling?”

“Uh…”

“We don’t have ceiling fans, Mr. Stilinski. The vent near the ceiling is the intake. I’m sorry if it’s noisy. If you’ve got the a/c running it might be louder. The controls for that are near the bathroom.”

“Thanks,” he said and hung up. He closed his eyes and stared at the phone. He breathed slowly and squeezed his phone with shaking fingers. He looked at the screen and forced his fingertip to open it and press the button for his recent contacts. The line rang and a sleepy voice picked up.

“Stiles?”

“I’m…I-I think I’m losing my mind.”

“Where are you?”


	4. It was just my imagination.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles fears the worst, and then the unexpected happens.

Stiles turned off all the lights and closed the curtains with his eyes shut. He crawled under the covers and pulled a pillow over his head, trying to block out any sound. He was afraid that he’d hallucinated the phone conversation too, but he was too scared to look at his phone and confirm it. Maybe he wasn’t awake yet. Maybe this was the dream too? It was like being captured by the fairies, he’d eaten something in their land, so he was stuck, starving to death while eating imaginary food. He tried willing himself to fall asleep, so he could wake up, but he was too scared to relax. His jaw started to ache before he realized he was clenching his muscles.

Stiles heard the elevator doors open and footsteps coming down the hall. They stopped and he heard a knock at the door. The correct door. He stood up and kept his eyes closed, putting his hands out in front of him until they brushed the door.

“Stiles?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s me, Buddy. Open the door.”

“How do I know it’s you, Scott?”

“Um, if you’re dreaming it won’t matter, right. If you’re hallucinating, it also won’t matter, so what do you have to lose?”

“You could be…someone who wants to hurt me.”

“Well, you won’t see it coming, right?”

“Hi, Scott.” Stiles opened the door and saw Scott’s face. He was smiling tentatively, but looked worried. “Um, I need to keep my eyes closed for a little while. Is that okay?”

“Sure.” Scott nodded and Stiles closed his eyes again, stepped back and opened the door. “Can I turn on the light?”

“Yeah, and can you turn off whatever the HVAC system is doing, but wait till my head is under a pillow, okay. Just tap my foot when it shuts off, okay?” He dove under the covers and felt the slight vibration of Scott moving around the bed towards the bathroom. He waited until he felt the bed depress and mattress bounce a few times as Scott climbed up towards the head of the bed. He felt a sneakered foot nudge his and lifted the pillow slightly. “Okay, I’m scared to sit up and look at the ceiling, so you might have to make me.”

“What happened? Is there a spider?”

“No, thank God they haven’t come for me yet.” He laughed to himself. “I’m so fucked up, Scotty. I’m losing it. Like seriously losing it. I thought it was just me having a bad dream, but then the front desk said…” He sighed and felt a warm hand on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Stiles. Just tell me from the beginning.”

“I don’t know where to start. It’s Sunday, right?”

“Yeah, you called me at around three something in the morning. It’s almost five now on Sunday morning.”

“I checked in on Wednesday. You called me on the phone.”

“You left and I called you and you said your head was noisy and you needed some quiet. Did anything happen while you were here?”

“I wasn’t doing a lot here, just sitting around, staring at the…ceiling. I got some room service, watched a little television, and when I went downstairs for breakfast yesterday, which would have been…Saturday morning, Allison came by. She got mad at me the other night. Chris told her about sleeping with me a few times. She was upset, and she came here to talk to me.”

“How did she know where you are?”

“She said she put a GPS tracker on my jeep after she left her dad’s place, but she didn’t look it up until Lydia told her I left town. She said she was upset that I hadn’t told her about me and her dad.”

“When did this happen?”

“Hang on, let me finish.”

“Okay.”

“I ended the conversation with Allison, paid for breakfast with cash, and then went upstairs. I checked my messages and sent Chris a text. I told him about her tracking me. I heard someone go into the room next door at some point.” He pointed in the direction of the connecting door. “I took a shower and then someone knocked at the connecting door. I answered and it was Chris. I thought about him a lot since Wednesday, and I got stuff off my chest. I yelled at him, I cried, and I kinda broke down. He hugged me, he said he was sorry, and that I-I’m still a good person.” Stiles moved his leg until his foot was resting against Scott’s leg, making sure he was still there. “Then I opened my eyes. I wasn’t sure if I fell asleep and he left, or what.”

“Okay,” Scott said, while Stiles took a few breaths. “What happened next?”

“My phone was out of juice. I-I hadn’t even plugged it in since I left home on Wednesday. I found my charger, plugged it in, and waited. I looked at my messages and I didn’t have any between me and Chris. I don’t think he actually came. I think I dreamed it, so I looked in my wallet, and I still had my cash, so I thought I might’ve just slept today and dreamed the whole day. I was weirded out, because I remembered a bunch of things happening and it all seemed the same as yesterday. I called the front desk and asked about my room service orders and they said I haven’t ordered anything.”

“Okay.”

“I remember eating and drinking. I remember tasting the food and carrying the trays. I don’t feel hungry because I just ate, except I didn’t. And I thought I might’ve gotten takeout or gone out, but I don’t remember doing it and I haven’t spent cash or money.” He started breathing heavily. “I had a panic attack. I was staring at the…” He was scared now. He blurted it out fast, “I was staring at the ceiling fan for days, but when I asked, she said there was no ceiling fan in here. But I know I was awake when I called the desk.” He poked at Scott’s leg again. “I shut my eyes and called you. I turned off the light so I wouldn’t have to see it again. I could feel a breeze so I got under the covers.”

“That’s why you asked me to turn off the HVAC system?”

“Yeah.”

“I turned it off. The air was blowing.”

“It’s off now?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a ceiling fan?”

“No.”

“I’m going crazy.”

“No. You just slept for a few days, you haven’t changed your clothes and you’re in ketosis. You need to eat and drink something.”

“How do I know I’m awake?”

“Give me your hand.”

“Ow!”

“Sorry, Dude. Had to be done.”

“Now I’ve got stigmata.”

“It’s only one hand, and it’s just a tiny prick. Don’t give me that look, I’m hung.”

Stiles got in the shower but left the door open so Scott could talk to him. When they were on the road, Stiles had a second freak out.

“This is Chris’s car. What’s going on?” Stiles started clawing at his seatbelt and tipped over as Scott swung the car over to the side of the road. Early morning traffic whizzed by them at a high speed and only Scott’s iron grip on his arm kept the human in his seat.

“I borrowed it because I thought I might’ve needed to drive you someplace.”

“Why not take my jeep?” He looked at Scott with suspicion.

“Do you have a headache?”

“Yeah, since I woke up.”

“Look in the mirror.” Scott released his friend’s arm and nodded to the visor. Stiles lowered it, and flipped up the mirror cover. It lit up and illuminated his face. He blinked and backed up, and then leaned forward again. He had a blackened and swollen spot above his left eye and bruising above his cheekbone.

“How did you know?”

“Isaac found your note, the one you left in his laundry basket, it had your itinerary. When you didn’t call yesterday we got worried and called the hotel. They said you’d never checked in. Most of the pack’s been searching the roads between Beacon Hills and Oakland all night. Your dad’s on his way back, I’m taking you to Beacon Hills Memorial.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know, but your jeep wasn’t in the parking lot.”

“If I wasn’t in Oakland, where was I?”

“Just inside the Sacramento city limits.” Scott gave him a gentle smile. “We’re gonna get you looked over. My mom’s already at the hospital, and we were about to have my dad put a trace on your credit card.”

Stiles put his aching head back against the head rest and closed his eyes. He felt Scott’s hand on his arm, giving it a squeeze.

“What did I do to my jeep?”

“What do you remember after you and I talked on the phone?”

“I had two other calls. Isaac and then Derek.”

“Derek said he called you at about four-thirty and asked about moving in. No one’s heard from you after that.”

“I-I don’t remember.”

“Retrograde amnesia, it happens with a concussion, sometimes.”

“Yeah, my other concussion was pretty rough.”

“We need to get you a crash helmet.”

“What else did I imagine?”

“I’m still a Werewolf. Do you still like boys and girls?”

“No. I like men and women.”

“Good man.”

“Got one?”

“Ha, that’s a bit weak.”

“Okay, in my hallucination, I imagined Allison being a big, ol’ bitch to me about me getting banged by her dad.” He settled into the seat. “I was tempted to tell her about the two times he fucked me in this SUV.”

“Oh, shit. No. Please.”

“Yep!”

“You should probably rest, Buddy.” Scott’s phone rang just as Stiles was going to point out the spot where he came on the carpet. “Thank fuck!” Scott hit the Bluetooth speaker. “Hey, he’s with me.”

“Stiles?”

“Dad.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Uh, I think you have to ask Scott.”

“He was in a Marriot, like his reservation said, he was just in the wrong city. I’m taking him to Beacon Memorial.”

“Your mom told me. What happened?”

“He’s got a pretty good bump on the head. I don’t know if he got jacked or something, but my money’s on a wreck because he had his wallet and his bad on him. I think he just checked in, and slept for a few days.”

“Where was he, I’ll have Peter and Malia scout around the hotel.”

Stiles blinked and saw Melissa’s face in front of him. He jumped slightly and recoiled. He was sitting up in the passenger seat with the door open.

“It’s okay, Stiles. Scott brought you to the emergency department. I’m gonna check you in.” He cupped his face gently.

“Am I dreaming again?”

“No, it’s me.”

“How do I know?”

“You fell off my porch and broke your wrist when you were ten.”

“I know that, if I were hallucinating you, my dream-lissa would know that.” His head hurt and he looked at her with what was probably a pathetic expression.

“Okay then,” She leaned forward and smiled. It was the kind of smile you got from a shark. “When you were doped up on Vicodin after you broke your arm, I had to put you to bed and I nearly broke my neck slipping on a magazine that was half-stuffed under your bed.” She raised her eyebrows.

“Oh no.”

“Does _Bouncy Gingers_ ring a bell to you?”

“Okay, take me straight to euthanasia.”

~

Despite it having been several days since _whatever_ happened, the E.D. insisted on strapping him to a back board and putting a cervical collar on him until he’d been shoved into a CT scanner and cleared of neck fractures. He’d changed into a gown and was sitting with Scott in the exam room when his best friend sat up straight.

“We’re good. He’s here. He’s in room seven A.” Stiles was slower than usual because it wasn’t until he heard his dad’s voice in the hallway along with Melissa’s that he realized Scott was having a conversation with the sheriff. Scott stood up and smiled at him. “Yeah, I’ll give you a minute.”

“Thanks for coming to get me.”

“Anytime, Brother.” He hugged Stiles tightly. “I’m really glad you’re okay. You scared us.”

John Stilinski opened the door and walked in. He looked pale and tired as he looked at his son; probably paler than he’d looked since the transformation.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Jesus, Kid. What the Hell happened?”

“I think I’ve heard that question a hundred times,” he said, rolling his eyes.

“How do you think I feel knowing it’ll be a hundred and one next month?” John’s expression was pained. Even with his son whole and in one piece, he was still afraid. “I haven’t heard back from Peter and Malia yet. The Sacramento P.D. are looking for reports of accidents and are looking for your jeep.”

“I don’t remember anything after talking to Derek. Or at least I can’t trust any of my memories before Scott picked me up.” He dropped his chin. “I hallucinated a lot of crying, though.”

“Is there any way you could’ve… _Talked_ to someone and forgot?”

“I have no idea, Dad, but I think this gives me plausible deniability.” He pointed to the bump on his head.

“The weekend staff didn’t check you in, but one of the managers said she’d call the people who were working when you came in. She’ll get the security camera feed as well, but that’ll take time. Since you’re okay, the Sacramento P.D. isn’t going to put a rush on it.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stiles, I highly doubt this is your fault.” He choked on the last word. “We had this talk over your last concussion. I think this is your third, Son. I’ll need you to stop now, though.”

“I’ll try.”

Stiles rested until late evening. His window was open, and the curtain was partially drawn so he couldn’t see it, but the fresh air was nice. A lab tech came in to draw his blood. She looked eighty and like she was smelling something bad. She sat down and huffed as she picked up his wrist and tugged his arm towards her to scan his bracelet. Stiles pulled back his wrist and cleared his throat, loudly.

“Doctor’s orders,” the woman said.

“Are what?” he asked. “Actually, who are you and why are you here in my room?” He’d had a rough week he couldn’t reliably remember, and a lab tech with an attitude was not going to earn his good grace.

“I’m here to draw blood,” she snapped.

“Pretty sure there’s a procedure for that. First is to identify yourself to the patient, also to explain what you’re doing and ask my information.” She reached for his hand and he pulled it out of her reach. “Let’s try this again. Who are you, and why are you here?”

“I can call to have you restrained if you don’t cooperate,” she hissed at him.

“No you can’t,” a clear tenor said, crisply from the hallway. 'Phlebotomist Ratched' turned around with a sudden look of guilt and fear as Peter Hale leaned in the doorway, casually. “Nobody likes you enough to break the rules regarding patient restraint, Stephanie.” In the dark room, his teeth glowed brightly. “I remember you from my brief stint in the burn ward.” His lip curled up the same way hers had when she’d approached Stiles. 

“When were you here?”

“It’s been over a decade. Are you a supervisor yet?”

"I'm the only one on tonight."

“So that's a no. What tests are you here to draw for my Boy.”

“You’re not his father,” Stephanie snapped. “I’m calling-”

“I didn’t say I was his _father_ ,” Peter purred, “I said he was my Boy. Stiles is my _very_ Good Boy.” He grinned broadly.

“Why are you here, Stephanie?” Stiles asked.

“The doctor ordered some blood work. You can check with him if you want.” Defensive or not, she straightened up. “I’m a good stick, I can be pretty quick if you want to just get it done.”

Stiles and Peter both knew a bully when they met one, and like most of them, Stephanie backed down when she didn’t have an easy target. She _was_ a good stick, and was finished in minutes.

“No I.V.?” Peter pulled a chair up to the end of Stiles’s bed and sat down with his arms crossed and an ankle balanced on one knee.

“They gave me one bag, but I can eat and drink.” Stiles lay his head back on his pillow. “I knew you’d be here. Unless this is another hallucination.”

“The little prick would’ve woken you up,” Peter replied.

“I wish the PA I had earlier had woken me up,” he said. “It would've made for a stellar comeback.”

“Sophomoric, at best. You could do better.”

“You’d have been ashamed of the one I tried on Scott in the hotel room.” He let his head roll back. “At least I think I did. Why _are_ you here?”

“I found your jeep. Well, technically Malia did, but we were out searching together, and I’m the Alpha.”

“Where did _Malia_ find it?” Stiles asked, innocently.

“In a ditch. You just missed a guard rail, so it wasn’t easily visible from the road.” Peter’s posture looked tense. "Not sure from how mangled the front end was if someone hit you or if you just suck at driving."

“What about my dash cam?”

“What?” Peter cocked his head. “Did the po-po give you one of those?”

“Lots of people have them, you relic.”

“Why?” He looked genuinely confused. “Are you just a bunch of snitches?”

“No, but if you get into a traffic accident it helps to have the proof of what happened.”

“Unless you’re at fault,” Peter said, looking at Stiles like he was mad. “Why would you want proof hanging around just waiting for someone to find it.”

“Spoken like a true liar.” He closed his eyes for just a moment, because his head hurt. He sighed when a warm hand settled on his, and the exquisite sensation of the absence of pain began to flow from his tense shoulders, up his neck, and into his head where pain had been living for a day.”

“You might’ve been in a coma for four days,” Peter said.

“I also might’ve been tripping balls and slipped in the bathroom on Saturday,” he replied with a sigh. “Don’t leave. I’m so afraid I’ll say the wrong thing.”

“You want me to stay close enough to slap a hand over your mouth?”

“No, I just won’t feel so afraid.” He started to drift. The doctors wouldn’t give him any strong pain medication for fear of masking a sharp increase in pain or pressure that could indicate a problem.

“Why are you afraid?” The voice was soothing and soft, and he relaxed into his pillow.

“I don’t know.” Stiles’s cheeks felt wet, but he hadn’t noticed himself dissolving into tears. “I feel like I’m drowning.”

“You won’t be alone, Sweetheart. Just rest.”

“I don’t even know if you’re real,” he whispered. “I thought Allison was. I thought Chris was. And it felt so good to talk to them. Really open up to them, but…it was just my imaginaaation.” He started to sing softly.

“That’s not how the tune goes, you tone-deaf, loon.”

“I’m a lover, not a singer,” he rasped with a cough. “Why do people get sick as soon as they come in these places?”

“They’re teeming with germs.” Peter’s voice moved around, and Stiles heard the rattle of ice in his pink plastic pitcher. “Here. Wet your whistle.” He felt a straw touch his lips and sipped the cold water. “Are you sure you’re not high?”

“I wish. Just closed head.”

“What does that even mean?”

“A closed-head injury. No cracked skull, no bleed, a concussion is a kind of closed head injury, but the PA probably wanted to do a tox screen because he thinks I’ve been on a bender.”

“I’m fairly sure Sacramento’s finest will be tossing your accommodations as we speak.”

“I get it now,” he said, lifting his thumb to touch Peter’s palm. “I only lost a few minutes when Duke took my memories, but you lost years. I can’t tell what was real, although I’m fairly sure none of it was, but I really have a giant blank space of the first three days before the hallucinations started up. It’s so hard to grasp that I can’t just think back and get it right.”

“It might come back eventually.”

“Did you smell anyone else at the jeep?”

“We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Did I hurt anyone?”

“No. If that had happened, I’ve not doubt you’d have wandered to the nearest hospital carrying a severed head before checking into your hotel.” He sighed. "You really are a lover, above everything else. You're a lover first."

"Maybe I'll show you sometime when you stop hating me."

"Hate's a very strong word, Stiles."

“So cheerful.”

“That’s how I roll.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Consulted a physician about a closed-head injury. Going with a severe concussion for his issue. What Stiles remembers, mainly the last two days of his stay in the hotel is my effort at describing delirium. He was hallucinating eating and drinking because he was dehydrated and hadn't eaten or drunk anything in three days while he was unconscious or barely conscious. Hunger wasn't waking him because his body was in fasting mode and he'd stopped feeling acute hunger. He was unable to balance properly, was seeing things and hearing voices and other sounds like knocking at the door.


	5. Broken Dam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles gets to try it in real time.

Stiles was released from the hospital when his vitals and mental state returned to normal after he’d had fluids and calories. Melissa pulled some strings and got him sprung from the hospital early and he went back to his apartment. His father had needed to get back to work so he left Stiles in the capable but somewhat indifferent care of Isaac and Derek. When he unlocked the door, he smelled bacon and his stomach growled.

“Honey, I’m home.” Stiles kicked off his shoes at the door and walked down the short hallway that opened to the kitchen. Isaac had apparently gotten lucky because a man was standing in the kitchen with a cup of coffee raised halfway to his lips. “Oh, sorry. Isaac’s just my roommate, we’re not…I have a head injury.” He walked up, rubbing his temple and held out his hand. “Good morning, I’m Stiles.” The guy was hot. Smoking hot. He had to give Isaac credit for landing a guy who looked like a model. The man glared at Stiles’s hand, busy eyebrows bunching together, and the lightbulb flickered on over the human’s head. “Jesus, Derek.”

“Took you a minute,” he said.

“Yeah, the eyebrows gave it away.” He slid onto a stool and sighed as he stared at the coffee cup. “You get all your non-heavy shit in?”

“Yes, but don’t worry, I’ve got plenty of heavy shit coming on Tuesday.”

“Please tell me there’s some bacon left.”

“Nope.” Derek picked up the last slice from his plate and crunched on it, happily. “I did get Bagels from River City after driving through Sacramento at an ungodly hour looking for some idiot who doesn’t know how to drive,” he said, sipping his coffee. “Thankfully they open at six.”

“What an inconsiderate douche.” Stiles kept sneaking looks at Derek’s face. He eventually got a glare and pushed away from the counter to toast his breakfast. “Sorry, I don’t mean to stare.”

“I know, it’s just the brain damage.”

“Yeah, probably.”

Stiles got a visit from Lydia in the afternoon and despite his release from actual medical personnel, she ran some neurological tests on him. It depressed him to know he was operating at a deficit again, and it scared him that he’d had several more days before housekeeping would’ve needed to clean the room. Lydia told him to lay off the soda for a few days because he needed to hydrate better. He cried a little, because apparently that was his thing now.

“What happened?”

“Apparently, it was just a car accident. Nothing suspicious.” She hugged him as he cried. “After everything that’s happened, I nearly bite it because of rain and an old lady in a hydroplaning Geo Metro.”

“Those things are like hockey pucks,” Lydia replied. “Did they find the other driver?”

“Yeah, but she said she didn’t know I’d gone off the road.” He leaned against Lydia’s shoulder. “The hallucinations felt so real.”

“Delirium,” the redhead said. “You’d had a head injury and probably were unconscious for the first three days, or barely conscious since you didn’t wet the bed. You didn’t eat or drink anything, your were getting delirious from dehydration. You started hallucinating at that point, probably a combination of the injury and dehydration.”

“But I could taste, smell, hear and touch things.”

“That’s why they’re hallucinations, not dreams.” She squeezed his arm. “I know it’s scary, but there’s nothing supernatural about it. Your mind conjured images from your sensory input and your memories.” She sighed. “You were upset about Chris and Allison.”

“Yes.”

“She texted me. The day I went to Chris’s house. I took a photo of myself in her robe and slippers. She asked if I was fucking Chris too. I guessed she’d found out about you two.”

“I was sympathetic to Chris, I know it’s been hard for him, but while I was delirious I got really angry. It just felt so unfair that…” He sighed, and shifted until his head was in her lap. She gently stroked his hair. “I’d be upset in her position, too. Still, she was upset because I’m a man, and felt like Chris was just jerking me around to prove something, like a midlife crisis.”

“She said that?”

“I can’t remember if it was the hallucination or when she was yelling at us on the phone. Chris in person, me on the phone.”

“She was probably in shock.”

“Chris said she suspected it. Not sure why.”

“I went to bed before he drove you back to the shelter, maybe you two were awkwardly flirting. Or maybe it was Kate.”

“She did seem to pop up whenever he came by, but she didn’t interrupt anything torrid, it’s not like we were hiding in closets or anything.”

“Okay, I have to know. Are the rumors true?” Her fingers stopped rubbing his scalp and Stiles snickered.

“What rumors, Lydia?”

“He belonged to the same country club as my dad. I overheard a conversation between him and his buddies when they were drinking. One of the younger associates still acted like a frat guy, and made a joke about Chris Argent having a nickname at the club.”

“What nickname?”

“They called him, the White Rhino.”

Stiles laughed so hard he got a headache that required much apologetic temple-rubbing from Lydia and some extra strength Tylenol.

“Have you ever looked down the barrel of a cannon?” he asked, drinking a glass of water. - _yes, the whole glass, I know I need to hydrate, Lydia._

“Yeah, at historical sites and stuff?” Lydia looked at him curiously. “Why?” The grin spread across his face until it was truly evil, and then she rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

“It’s unreal. I have no idea how he hides it in his tight pants.”

“You work with Alpha Weres, and he was born human, it can’t be-”

“It is.” Stiles was embarrassed for saying it. “I shouldn’t even tell you this, but one conversation, real or not, I got mad and told Allison that I was the one getting worn out and that her father was an animal.”

“I hope it’s the real one.” Lydia laughed. “I’m Switzerland in this conflict, you’re an adult and you weren’t dating for long, and you weren’t serious, and there were very good reasons for keeping it quiet. On the other hand, I can see why she’s upset, but something like that might actually drive it home for Allison that her dad is hot on another level.”

A knock at the door had them both rolling their eyes.

“Twenty says it’s someone who just heard us.”

“I’m not taking it,” Lydia said. There had been something kind of…smug about the knock. She got up to answer the door. “Great day for a safari, I see.” Stiles snorted as Chris Argent walked into the room.

“Uh, Hi.” Chris looked a little confused and maybe a little pleased, but he gave her a wink. She blew Stiles a kiss and left the two men alone. “How are you feeling?”

“Worse than last time,” he said. He was embarrassed about talking to Lydia regarding his sex life and having the subject of the discussion turn up. “How are you?”

“Okay. I missed my flight to L.A. and told Allison why.” He came in and sat down on the couch when Stiles sat up to give him room. “I hope you don’t mind me mentioning it.”

“I appreciate how everyone was looking for me.”

“We were afraid when we couldn’t find you.” The hunter was looking at his hands. “I was afraid you’d been attacked by someone associated with my past.”

“Unless there are old ladies in little cars just waiting for torrential rain…” He shrugged. “After everything that’s happened, it seems so strange to almost get taken out by something as mundane as a car accident.”

“John said you went to the wrong hotel.”

“I don’t remember anything from shortly before the accident till three days later. The rest was apparently delirium from dehydration.”

“What did you see?” The hunter’s eyes were looking at him intently, and when Stiles said nothing, he continued. “Peter said I should ask you.” Stiles thought back to a vague memory from the hospital. “He said you talked to Allison and me while you were out of it. He said you felt relieved afterwards.”

“I’m not in a very good place.” Stiles was irritated when the tears started coming. “My first thought is that you didn’t come see me until he told you to. Whether or not it’s true, doesn’t matter. Like I said, I’m not in a good place. I keep crying all the time.

“Maybe it has something to do with everything that’s been happening since late fall.” Chris looked back at his own hands.

“Why do you want to hear this?

“It might help you get better.”

“Won’t help a concussion heal.”

“You felt like you had to leave and cut off contact for days. I know part of it is my fault. I thought seeing you when you couldn’t filter your feelings was…probably what I deserve at this point.”

“You’re not the only one who’s hurt me, and I made some of my own decisions, but yeah, you’re a big reason I left.” Chris’s shoulders drooped a little. “What did you expect, Chris?” He laughed bitterly.

“Jesus, I thought I was-”

“Save it. Whatever you thought: that you were doing what was best for me, that you were trying to save Peter, or Derek, or just in general that you thought you were doing the right thing, just save it. You put me through Hell, Allison was just the last straw.” Chris looked wrecked and devastated, just like he had in the hotel room. Stiles had to turn away. “Your words are meaningless because your _actions_ were so much louder. You put stalker-level effort into meeting up with me in Vegas just to shoot your shot and then you ghosted me. You did it again with your scheming to get me alone at the gun range before dropping me again. Back and forth; you apologize and say how the jobs and futures of other people depend on us keeping it a secret.”

“I’ve hurt you. I know. It wasn’t fair.”

“I’m not finished.” The hunter shut his mouth. “I kept the secret, I would’ve anyway because you don’t just ‘out’ someone like that. Especially not to their family.” He paced, getting worked up. “You used me to help you and help Peter even when I was hurt, even after…what happened when Peter came back. All you could think about was him. Even when I went into heat with you. You told me you’d have done anything to get me back, but I turned around and you offered me to Peter.”

“I thought-”

“Shut up!” Stiles shouted and put his hand up to his temple. “Don’t make me raise my voice again.” He let out a chuckle. “That sounds so stupid. Let me simplify it. I don’t care what you thought you were doing. I should’ve been allowed to choose.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck your sorry.” He was crying and soaked up the tears with his sleeve. “After everything you put me through. After everything that happened to me-even the stuff that wasn’t your fault-and everything I’ve done to try to protect the people I care about; after all that… I was okay. I was okay processing who I’ve become because I had my dad, and Scott, and Lydia, and Allison, and you and eventually Peter to have my back.” He went to the window and rested his forehead on it. “Peter got his memory restored and I’ve lost him.”

“Peter doesn’t-”

“I will kick your fucking teeth in if you try to correct me or interrupt me again.” Stiles didn’t turn around again. “Some part of him hates me, and it’s too much for the rest of him. He had to ask me to leave because the urge to hurt me was too much. The people closest to me who I could turn to are _his_ pack. At best it’s a conflict of interest for them.” He turned around to face Chris. “You’ve been lying to Allison her whole life and she didn’t deserve that. I know how much you wanted to come clean, but it’s not my fault she can’t be trusted, you’re the one who raised her. But when you couldn’t unload a secret about yourself, you threw me under the bus. Now I don’t have her, and I don’t have you.” He waited and then gave Chris the ‘go ahead’ gesture. The guy had listened, he deserved at least a chance to defend himself.

“She guessed.” _Nope._

“You erased her memory, Chris. You had options, but _that_ night… _that_ secret was your limit? _That_ one was a bridge too far? We talked about it, and I understood at the time. I _still_ understand why you did it, but too much has been building up and I’m tired of always being the one who gets sacrificed.” He rubbed his temples. “I should probably let you say your peace, but I don’t want to hear it. I think I have a right to be angry and I’d rather think through it on my own, albeit in the safety of my own apartment.”

“I can wait.”

“See yourself out.” Stiles went back to his room and stared at the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Believe it or not, Chris is not the bad guy, but he did need a wake-up call.


	6. You look just like him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Derek bargains. Stiles starts looking after himself.

Stiles managed to ignore his roommates through dinner, until it was time for bed. Derek strolled in with his pajama pants-they had wolves on them-and gave Stiles a look. Stiles looked down at his own pajama pants which had fluffy cartoon sheep on them.

“Funny.”

“Lydia bought them,” Derek said.

“Ironic, because she bought mine too.” He looked back at his book. “What’s up?”

“Um, my bed isn’t here yet.”

“Fine.” Stiles pulled back the covers and Derek moved in next to him. “I’m not usually this easy to get in the sack,” he said.

“Right, how many hand jobs have you given me?”

“Touche.”

~

Stiles didn’t see Isaac for two days other than disappearing into his room or out the front door, despite bro-code rules, he opted to bring it up with Derek.

“Why’s Isaac avoiding me?”

“Bro-code,” the Werewolf mumbled.

“You’re spooning me.”

“Sorry.” Derek rolled over and scooted a foot away. He couldn’t help it if he was a cuddler, he’d been sleeping alone for years.

“I’ve got brain damage, cut me some slack.” Stiles flopped onto his back.

“Is it permanent?”

“No idea.” There was thoughtful silence.

“It’s a little chilly, you know.” For such an introvert, Derek was a vicious negotiator. Stiles sighed and rolled over, spooning the wolf.

“Better?”

“Yes, you’re an aggressive little spoon.” Derek made no bones about the fact that he might _need_ cuddling, but he had no desire for _interaction_. “Isaac has asked me if Chris has been by. He’s asked a few times.”

“So?”

“He’s suggested learning to shoot a gun and getting lessons.”

“So?”

“He turned down your father.”

“Oh? Ohhhhhh.”

“Right.”

“I guess that complicates things.”

“You were sleeping with him?”

“Do you like guys?”

“More partial to girls, but I like the occasional dick.”

“Is it a Werewolf thing that you're not hung up on the nuance of the Kinsey scale?”

“Something like that. So did you bang your friend’s dad?”

“My friend’s extremely hot dad, who...okay, is friends with my dad, followed _me_ to Las Vegas where he got a room in the same place I was staying when I went for a trade show. He scammed his way into my room and proceeded to seduce me.”

“He banged you?”

“Like a drum.”

“Okay, and now his daughter’s mad?”

“Allison was Isaac’s owner for a while.”

“I know. But I don’t think it’s about her.” He snuggled into Stiles’s chest and pulled his arm around tighter. “Isaac’s floundering a little. He’s trying with Peter, but Peter has his hands full with so many new Betas.”

“Why’s he avoiding me? Is he mad because I’m angry with Chris?”

“I think he feels guilty because he want’s Chris to put him over his knee, and he’s loyal to you, and you’re angry with Chris.”

“I’ll try to talk to him.”

“I’m not saying you have to, it’s not your responsibility to try and fix everyone, Stiles.” He started breathing more softly and deeply. “That’s why all the bad stuff happens.”

“What?”

“You let it. You put up with the jerking around from Chris because you didn’t think he’d give you what you wanted if you weren’t letting him take you for granted.”

“It’s like sleeping with Lydia.”

“Shut up.”

~

Stiles stared at the alarm clock beside his bed. Derek was in the shower, so he was tempted to starfish out, but the clock kept his attention. He remembered a sci-fi show episode where one of the main characters was convinced he was losing his mind because he kept going back and forth between two alternate realities. In the end, neither was real, and he broke out by smashing everything around him until he woke up. It was enough to make him paranoid. The ‘animals’ he worked with now talked like humans and even wore wolf pajamas.

Stiles stared at the clock as another minute ticked by. Maybe he was trapped in a delusion now, and the other details, like the ceiling fan, the room service, maybe they’d been real and Scott’s rescue had been a lie.

“You stink, why are you upset?”

“When is your bed getting here?” 

“Soon. Why are you upset?”

“Questioning my sanity.”

“Definitely not sane. Move on.”

“Before Thanksgiving, my life had plenty of excitement, but the shelter creatures didn’t talk, there wasn’t a secret conspiracy, and I lived in a shoebox. Now, my father and best friend are both Werewolves, I’m in a luxury penthouse, and I helped take down a big conspiracy to justify genocide. What seems more real?”

“Were you happy before?”

“Yes.”

“Not that one.” Derek looked resigned, as usual. “It’s never the good one.”

“Thanks, big guy.”

Stiles showered and Derek drove him to his appointment with his new primary care doctor. His old Camaro still ran well enough for him to drive it like a maniac, and he delivered Stiles to his appointment ten minutes early.

“I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”

“My appointment should only-”

The Camaro was gone, and Stiles went inside. His father-and Melissa-had put their collective feet down and insisted that seeing his Omega specialist at planned parenthood and a veterinarian for his medical needs was inadequate now that he’d had his second concussion. He’d had to go into the next county to find a practice with Neurology as well as primary care and specialty reproductive services. He checked in and opened his book, a self-indulgent book about self-discovery that had been on the poorly stocked literature shelf in the grocery store. His headaches were bad enough that he couldn’t watch television or read on his tablet, so books were it for him. Eventually his name was called, and he was walked to a room by a medical assistant. After several minutes in a johnny, a resident came in and introduced herself as Maria Lopez.

“If I wanted to hide somewhere in California, I’d change my name to Maria Lopez,” he joked. The doctor blinked at him. “It’s the most common name in California.”

“Second concussion, huh?” Dr. Lopez was a young, attractive woman with a cool competent air about her. She looked at him with curiosity instead of disinterest. “How did the first one happen?”

“I used to work with feral Alpha Weres. One of them wanted to play and smacked my head on a rock.”

“How does a feral Were like to play?”

“Rough.”

“The second one?”

“Car accident.” The doctor’s big, brown eyes were very intense. As she shined a light in Stiles’s eyes.

“Your chart had some interesting notes, it stated you had hallucinations at a hotel.”

“I don’t remember the accident, or anything else for several days. I had reservations in Oakland, and after the accident I walked to another hotel, thought I was at mine, checked in and woke up delirious from dehydration a few days later and spent the next few in increasing levels of hallucinations and eventually thought I had visits from…friends.”

“Why were you going to Oakland?”

“What?” Stiles had been answering on autopilot, he looked more closely at the resident. She had a look in her eye that reminded him of how Peter, Chris, and Derek looked at him sometimes.

“You seem depressed,” she said. “I just got off my psych rotation.”

“So are you a new resident?” He kept his smile neutral.

“Yes.”

“Congrats on your white coat.”

“Why were you in Oakland?” She didn’t look greedy for the info, like a medical student might, just…concerned. “You’ve had two concussions, and you had cracked ribs last year, but you usually only get seen in the E.D. or…specialty GYN.” Omegas between the ages of fifteen and thirty had a forty-percent higher rate of reports of domestic abuse than Betas. Alphas had the lowest reported rates of domestic abuse in the same demographic. Stiles smiled at her, sadly.

“It’s been a rough six months, but more related to my job. We had two armed break-ins at the shelter where I worked, and both of them ended in fatalities. The last one resulted in the death of an FBI agent who was trying to get to my dad’s car to get more firepower because we were pinned down by gunfire.” He stopped to breathe because it suddenly got harder. “My support system dissolved really quickly, and I was feeling overwhelmed. I wanted to go to a place that had yoga classes and some peaceful surroundings so I could avoid distractions while I decided what I want to do next with my career. I am depressed, but I was definitely not suicidal.”

“Do you currently have a romantic partner?”

“No.”

“Were you seeing someone recently?”

“Yes, but I ended things because he wasn’t being honest.” _Jesus, he was an Omega cliché._

“Are you seeing a counselor?”

“I’m getting one, but I haven’t had…the time until recently.”

“Why did you end your job?”

“It got blown up and burned, and…people shot at me.”

“What about the Alphas?”

“They mostly stopped trying to kill me years ago.”

~

_“Wow, he looks like he wants to rip my head off.”_

_“He does.” Alan Deaton’s tone was mild. “Peter wants to rip most people’s heads off.”_

_“Always?”_

_“Most of the time.”_

_“Well, what do you say big guy? Shall we try for those moments when you don’t want to rip mine off?”_

Stiles had loved his work at the barn, and part of it was the powerful feeling of having a creature that could, and wanted to kill most of the people around him, purr like a cat when Stiles rubbed his scalp the right way. It had been worth the hard work to be the one promoted to senior staff. Growing up inside the inner circle of Beacon county’s law enforcement had given him the addiction for being in the thick of it. He was nosy. He wanted to be allowed to go into the restricted areas, he wanted to be allowed to ignore the rules that were imposed on visitors. He liked being the one who said _Don’t try this at home, kids, I’m a professional._

The Pavlovian response Peter had developed to Stiles’s presence had likely prevented the Alpha from shutting him out completely. It probably would’ve been healthier for them to separate and recover before trying to be friends, but the situation had been too volatile for the luxury of distance. Stuck together, they’d coped with it by normalizing the sex. The psychology classes in college had told Stiles enough about what people do to cope with a loss of control to understand why both he and Peter had jumped from the assault, to the blowjob, to the heat sex. Their bond from their mutual traumas had left them unable to do anything but trust each other. The full moon they’d spent together had cemented Peter’s identity in Stiles’s mind. Feral Peter didn’t exist anymore and wasn’t going to make an appearance again. The Werewolf was a whole person, and whether angry, or acting on instinct, he was still Peter. Stiles had found that he genuinely liked Peter and had felt a building attraction between them.

At the hospital, Stiles had been surprised when Peter had shown up to rescue him from the mean lab tech, and more surprised when he’d stayed to take his pain and talk to him. There had been distance and reserve in the wolf, and the easy closeness they’d shared was gone. Peter had ‘treated’ his pain and loneliness, but he hadn’t been engaged.

It always hurt when Stiles cared for someone more than they cared for him. He left his appointment with referrals and a healthy spritzing of scent neutralizer. He hadn’t realized he smelled, but he couldn’t get his next dose of suppressant until he’d had an appointment and a pregnancy test. He had birth control, but it was useless because he was single. Technically, he hadn’t been _not_ single for a long time.

“I can smell your man-pain,” Derek said, pulling into the parking garage.

“They sprayed me with something, apparently it wasn’t man-pain suppressant.”

“Maybe you should get a handle on it.”

“Talked to Lydia lately?”

“Touche.” They stared at each other and Stiles broke first.

“What do you want from me?”

“You’re the smart one?”

“Nope, that’s Lydia.”

“She’s the genius, you’re the one who figures stuff out.”

“How would you know?”

“I remember some stuff.” He paused. “Why does that make you smell even more miserable?”

“I’m telling Dr. Lopez that this spray doesn’t work.” He took out the bottle and looked at it. “I’m supposed to smell like a Beta, or something.”

“Maybe it works for human-level senses.” Derek frowned. “Although I will say I don’t smell any other people on you. Not even me.”

“I could’ve used it at the shelter.”

“What are you going to do with your life?”

“I don’t know, what are you going to do? Don’t you have a degree or something?”

“I’m independently wealthy, I don’t have to work.”

“How did your family make money, anyway?” Stiles looked at hm. “Could you sniff out minerals or something?” Derek scowled. “I’m not messing with you, I just wonder what kind of edge you could actually have in the workforce that wouldn’t give you away.”

“We actually can sniff out some minerals, but the most precious ones don’t give off enough smell to make it worth it.” He turned in to a drive through and idled at the end of the line. “My grandfather was a surgeon. He made a lot of money, but we’ve been investing in real estate for a long time.”

“Why not piracy? I feel like you’d be naturals.”

“That’s one of the things the Left Hand always dealt with. We lived well but within our means and with several generations living close to each other, pooling resources and energy meant we prospered. We always needed to have a cushion in case we had to leave everything behind. We needed access to fake I.D.s and papers. My great-aunt was the Left Hand for my grandmother, she used to make all our paperwork. Peter had a gift for hacking and…other things, so he was my mom’s Left Hand, and then Laura’s.”

“Who’s going to be the Left Hand now?”

“Don’t know, we’re a small pack, so I think Peter’s still doing it all. Chris helps too.” They got up to the speaker and Derek put in a massive order for fried chicken and a bunch of side dishes. He paid and Stiles realized there was far too much for even Isaac, Derek, and himself to consume.

“Where are we going?”

“Lunch.”

Stiles grew anxious when they got to Peter’s apartment, but he saw the sheriff’s car and relaxed a little; Deaton was there as well.

“What’s the occasion?”

“We used to regularly get together at least once a week for a meal. Lunch today was the only time we all had available.”

Stiles helped Derek unload the sodas and paper plates from the trunk and the Werewolf carried the food. It was loud and busy in Peter’s apartment, as they were the last ones to arrive. Lydia and Jordan had brought dessert, which was set up on a small table beside the window, Erica had brought Boyd and some fresh fruit, John and Melissa had brought a big pot of chili and cornbread, Peter and Malia had brought chips and dip with a taco bar, Scott and Kira had a big veggie platter, and Stiles and Derek had brought the chicken, biscuits, and mashed potatoes. Isaac brought a six-pack of Mexican soda that looked like the ones Stiles had just replaced. Isaac was still learning how to be an adult, so he didn’t mention it.

Stiles set up the plates and flatware and added a trash can and recycle bin at the end of the kitchen island. He sat with Boyd so Erica could have a little break from the clingy Were. However quiet, Boyd was very comfortable with the whole pack, humans, wolves, and the kitsune. Deaton was planning to try a chemical treatment on him if Peter couldn’t find the right trigger for his mind, but they’d had trouble locating any of his family.

Stiles put together a massive burrito for the Werewolf who ate it happily, and even drank limeade through a straw. Erica looked smug over that. Stiles got the Were settled before he went back to the buffet to serve himself some chicken and potatoes with a small cup of chili. He perched near the window and chatted with Scott until Kira finished and started cleaning up, and then went to help her. Stiles was contemplating the dessert table when he heard a voice by his elbow.

“How are you feeling, Stiles?”

“Okay.” He nodded at Peter but didn’t look up. “How are you?”

“Fine.” The Alpha walked away, and Stiles pulled out his book, not wanting everyone to smell his anxiety. He called a ride share and cleaned up his stuff, and then slipped away with a quick goodbye and a claim of fatigue.

“I’ll come by later,” John said, looking concerned.

Stiles had the car drop him off near the park and walked to the store to get more Mexican sodas on his way back. He wasn’t sure why he felt so suffocated, but he couldn’t stay in Peter’s apartment any longer. He trudged in the front door and set the six-pack on the counter. He took out two and opened the fridge to put them in when he heard someone behind him.

“Can we talk?” Stiles jumped and dropped the bottles where they smashed on the kitchen tile.

“Shit!” he shouted, putting a hand to his throat. He stared down at the broken bottles for a moment and fought back tears. Broken soda bottles would not break him today. He swore again and pulled down some paper towels. Peter knelt across the mess from him, but he waved the older man away. “Grab a paper bag, they’re under the sink.” He soaked up the soda and then swept up the broken glass. He didn’t look up from his task until he’d used the little spray mop to clean up the sticky drink from the tiles.

“I didn’t mean to startle you,” Peter said.

“No kidding.” Stiles said. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“Isaac and Derek are going to take Boyd and Erica to run in the woods. They’ll be gone till dinner, so we have some time.”

“Sure.” Stiles felt like the walls were closing in on him. This was the big talk where Peter said it wasn’t working out. “Derek didn’t give me a choice. I wouldn’t have come if I’d known.”

“That’s why I told him not to tell you. I knew you’d avoid it if given the choice.” He crossed his arms. “You ducked out as soon as you could, and you seemed uncomfortable when I wanted to talk to you so I didn’t push it.”

“Okay, well you’re here now, so go ahead and talk.”

“You saw your doctor?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say about your head?”

“It was a primary care appointment. I was just getting established as a patient and I saw one of the residents. She’s putting in the referrals to neuro and the specialty doc.”

“Is that your Omega doctor?”

“Yes, I was just going to planned parenthood before. Non-profits don’t have great health insurance. I’ve got a self-pay plan now because I need to be seen regularly now.”

“What kind of symptoms are you still experiencing?”

“Are you a doctor?” he snapped, and then turned away. “I’m not-why do you want to know? Why do you expect me to tell you this stuff?”

“I’m your Alpha, I care what happens to my pack.”

“I’m not one of your wolves. I’m not in the pack.”

“Of course you are.” Peter’s tone sounded like he thought it should’ve been obvious. “We’re a little unorthodox, but not everyone in the Hale Pack was a wolf. The families and partners were included as well, we need the variety, we need to be grounded by the community, we need _you,_ Stiles.”

“I don’t want to cause a problem for you.”

“Why would you think you’d be the cause of a problem?”

“You’re being obtuse, you know exactly what I’m talking about. You could barely stand to be near me in the hospital, and you couldn’t be in the same room with me before I left.”

“I’m feeling much more comfortable now.”

“What a huge relief that is,” Stiles said, drily. This wasn’t the same situation as Chris, and Peter didn’t deserve his anger. He took a few deep breaths and closed his eyes, reaching for the reins on his temper. “I’m struggling with a lot right now, and I can’t handle any kind of expectations. You can’t rely on me. You can’t count on me for anything. You can’t even expect a coherent conversation because I can’t even control my emotions in a regular conversation.” The waterworks were imminent, and Stiles felt helpless and depressed because his brain wasn’t working well enough to keep him from bursting into tears.

“My only expectation is that you tell me what you need from us.” Peter gestured for Stiles to follow him into the one unused bedroom. Peter had it set up as his office, although Stiles suspected it was an excuse to keep closer to Isaac. “You haven’t figured out what you want to do next for a job, so I thought you might like to keep occupied with something in the meantime.” Peter had apparently finished putting his office together while Stiles was away, and he’d even painted the room a soft, Mediterranean blue. His desk was fairly large, but it had clean lines and there were several comfortable chairs plus a couch. Speakers were mounted on the walls and there was even some artwork and a plant.

“Wow, this looks really great.”

“I need my office to be a comfortable place where I can relax.”

“What is it for, exactly?” Stiles had so much going on in his head, he grasped at the distraction. “I mean, what do you do during the day?”

“I’m a pack Alpha. I’ve resurrected my accounts and the pack trust, I’ve added the members and I’m in the process of setting up proper funding and support as well as group health insurance.”

“Why do wolves need health insurance?”

“It’s weird if we don’t have any medical and dental records, so we regularly get checkups. I also have humans in my pack. Lydia doesn’t heal any faster than you, and we’re not entirely certain how Jordan works, but I like to have my bases covered. Kira doesn’t heal as quickly as we do, but she has some gifts.” He tilted his head to the side. “And you’re human. You need insurance coverage that’s more reliable.”

“How does that work, with a pack and the corporate side of it?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. I’ve handled a lot of the administrative side of things in the past, but I’m a bit busier now. I thought I could get you to help me wade through the paperwork. I’ve heard you’re good at research.”

“I’m the _Man_ , when it comes to research.”

“Okay, Derek and I can show you the ropes of how our little organization works. How we establish the tax fronts and deductions and how we pay salaries.”

“Salaries?”

“Yes, not everyone has a job. Erica is listed as disabled on paper, and we can’t turn around and call her healed right away, so we’ll be augmenting her benefits and helping her get her living situation more permanently solved.”

“Right, I forgot about that.” He scratched his head. “I don’t think I ever asked, do we know who blew up her house?”

“Theo.” Peter raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize I’d left it out. Julia was trying to point Gerard and Kate at the shelter again, but we took Boyd out. He was a loose end, and he’s extremely protective and attached to Erica, so they couldn’t lure him away. It was actually pretty amateur, but still effective to use gas to blow the place. Theo wasn’t going for clean, because he wasn’t planning to stick around here for long afterwards.”

“How do you feel about me now?” Stiles blurted the question out quickly, hoping to surprise him. He stared at the wolf’s face, looking for revulsion or distaste, unexpectedly, he saw sorrow.

“That is so complicated,” he said the human turned away and walked out of the room. “Wait, please.”

“I know you can’t stand being around me right now but come _on_! I was trying so hard.”

“I know you were.” Stiles wanted Peter to tell him he was wrong. It was partly why he’d pulled out the pathetic self-deprecation. “I know how hard you tried. I know how much you wanted things to be okay with us.” Peter stepped forward and looked like he wanted to reach out, but put his hands in his pockets. “They’re not okay, and I don’t want you to get the wrong idea, especially when you’re so vulnerable right now.” Stiles backed up, wanting to physically remove himself from the rejection. He backed into the wall and leaned against it.

“Don’t talk around it, Peter. I don’t understand what happened, and I probably can’t follow a long explanation. My brain is that scrambled right now. Please, just be direct. How did you feel the night of the full moon?”

“The night you ran?”

“Yeah, and you stayed in my bed that night, you said you were waiting for me to ask you. I thought we were connecting with each other for the right reasons that night.”

“Unlike the others?”

“You told me you couldn’t help being attached to me the night we stayed in my old apartment. We’d both been through a lot and it made sense at the time. Later, Chris invited you to join us when I was in heat-without asking me-and it was really great. You both made it wonderful when it could’ve been awful, but heat sex isn’t the basis for a relationship.”

“Is that what you wanted?” Peter asked. “With me?”

“I don’t know. For our other times having sex, it felt like we were bonding as survivors, and people who were trying to fix something. It felt right, like it was what we were supposed to do. I can’t think of anyone I trusted more than you.” He rubbed his temples. “On the full moon, it felt like we were…men. We were flirting and having fun. And it was a little scary but exciting, and it helped me see the real you. Not the feral animal, or the sarcastic, traumatized man trying to save his family. The Werewolf.”

“What did you think of the Werewolf?”

“I liked him. I thought he liked me.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “Not as the zookeeper he bonded with, or the Omega who helped him find a way to connect with an old companion, but as just…us.”

“I did too,” Peter said. “I wanted you with me after Derek came back. It was so terrible to remember feeling so out of control. So helpless.” Peter’s voice was soft. Fond. “You held me so gently, and you touched me so tenderly, it was different that what I remembered you doing in the barn.”

“How do you feel now?”

“Conflicted. Not about you, Stiles, but about myself. I’m so afraid of pursuing you for the wrong reasons.” He shook his head. “And I still have urges towards you that aren’t mine.”

“Okay.” Stiles nodded.

“Okay?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “Parts of you were in feral Peter, but he’s not _you_ at all.” Stiles relaxed a little and smiled. “Even at your wildest since you woke up, you’re not him.” He sighed heavily. “It’s been tough though.”

“Why?”

“You look just like him.”

**Author's Note:**

> Allison's not the bad guy. Seriously, what would you think if your dad started banging a friend of yours from high school, you'd think it was a midlife crisis too.


End file.
